The special issue of @cpsjournal.bsky.social “Back from the Brink: Countering Illiberalism in Liberal Democracies”, co-edited by myself and Isabela Mares, was just published. The issue includes 8 articles, many of which set new research agendas. A🧵w/overview 1/10
journals.sagepub.com/toc/CPS/curr...
Much of the coverage of the Hungarian election has focused on Orbán. We know less about the strategy behind Péter Magyar’s and Tisza’s breakthrough. I’ve written a short piece for @ecprtheloop.bsky.social on why this challenge succeeded.
Do citizens care who makes policy?
In Germany, some policies can be adopted either by federal or state governments. But do voters have preferences over which actor adopts a policy?
Turns out, they mostly do not.
New paper out @epsrjournal.bsky.social 🧵 1/8 www.cambridge.org/core/journal...
An @lseeuroppblog.bsky.social post on our recently published paper in @psrm.bsky.social is now available! 👇
How does coalition participation influence party membership?@hannaeback.bsky.social @michaelimre.bsky.social and I find that junior coalition partners lose more members than parties that govern alone, and an increasing ideol. diversity within the cabinet is related to a decreasing number of members.
Ein wichtiges Projekt zur Zukunft ländlich-peripherer Räume und genau die Zusammenarbeit, die es braucht. Ich freue mich sehr, dass die DFG die Forschungsgruppe "AdaptInfra" fördert.
Wer sich für ländliche Räume und Parteien interessiert: Eine passende Promotionsstelle wird in Kürze ausgeschrieben.
Spread the word! Applications for the Summer School on Political Parties are open now! We moved to Bristol (UK)!
New book coming June 2026!
Edited with @mhagevi.bsky.social: "A Research Agenda for Political Parties" covers key developments in party politics, from organisation and leadership to digital campaigns, AI, and coalition governance.
www.e-elgar.com/shop/gbp/a-r...
Looking forward to see this one out! It was fun to discuss past and future developments in intraparty democracy research. Kudos to @niklasbolin.bsky.social and @mhagevi.bsky.social for steering this much needed reflective work!
When the “rules of the game” are not universally accepted anymore, we need to understand better which parties seek to make changes and why. For this, it is important to consider their very own organizational models, both on paper (e.g., in their statues) and in practice.
In turn, parties exhibiting a high degree of decentralized personalism tend towards liberalism and consensus democracy. The results hold when controlling for the Green and PRRP party families that were identified in previous research as challenging the liberal, representative standard.
We develop and apply indices that operationalize (largely based on PPDB) Gidi’s typology of party personalism and link it to V-Party measures of democratic conceptions. We find that high centralized personalism goes together with supporting direct democracy, illiberalism, and majoritarianism.
Previous studies have examined ideology and populism to explain parties’ conceptions of democracy. We argue that party personalism is part of the story: Party organization both reflects and shapes the worldviews of its personnel, activists, and voters, including their vision of democracy.
On the one hand, we see an increase in participatory and deliberative democratic innovations layered next to traditional representative institutions. On the other hand, democratic backsliders challenge liberalism “from above”. Where do political parties stand re/ democracy in their political system?
The standard model of liberal, representative democracy is increasingly being challenged from the bottom and the top. In a new paper @Party Politics, Gidi Rahat and I seek to explain why political parties differ in the conception of democracy they advance.
doi.org/10.1177/1354...
NEW PAPER in @prxjournal.bsky.social w the amazing @leoniedejonge.bsky.social. Studying the rise & fall of the Dutch NSC, the paper outlines “party brand activation” as an alternative strategy for parties to respond to a rising far right. doi.org/10.1080/2474... (1/)
📣 New publication with the great @matthiasdilling.bsky.social in @prxjournal.bsky.social on the rise (and fall) of the Dutch NSC. Slow science meets fast-moving politics: while writing this, the party had risen - and fallen. Yet: it offers lessons on countering the far right: doi.org/10.1080/2474...
Evaluating and improving performance of this function requires refocusing on the concept of leadership and understanding party organizations’ role in a) the recruitment of leaders committed to liberal democracy and b) institutionalizing ways that make tempted leaders discount short-term gains.
Finally, resuscitating ideas from Sartori and Schumpeter, we argue that a central function of political parties must be the active defense of liberal democracy. Here, parties have recently underperformed and this is partly due to organizational factors.
Specifically, while personalization has weakened parties in the electoral realm, it seems to have actually strengthened them in parliament and government.
We disagree that personalization means that parties become less important and that therefore a paradigm shift is in order. Going back to definitions from Wildenmann’s Future of Party Government project, instead of the mass party ideal, we show that personalization and party are not so antithetical.
It was an immense honor to contribute to the 30th anniversary issue of Party Politics. Richard Katz and I advocate for the continued relevance of studying party organization, both to understand how politics in democracies actually works and to articulate how it should work.
doi.org/10.1177/1354...
NEW PUBLICATION
“How the Media Cordon Sanitaire Crumbles: Lessons from Germany” now out in @prxjournal.bsky.social
🔓 doi.org/10.1080/2474736X.2026.2621808
I’m very happy that this paper is out – this project is particularly important to me.
🚨🎉 New Publication! 🎉🚨
Measuring Factional Conflict: A Comparative Approach Using Party Leadership Contests
w/ @malpas.bsky.social & @blumrm.bsky.social
Out now in Party Politics. 🔗 doi.org/10.1177/1354...
(🧵 below)
I feel truly honoured to confer the degree of Doctor Honoris Causa on behalf of Ghent University to Richard Katz. We celebrate him on 20 March for his contribution to political science, and to the study of political parties in particular.
@gasparugent.bsky.social
🎉 New paper out in Political Behavior (with @gijsschumacher.bsky.social & @mrooduijn.bsky.social)
Why do some people feel stronger emotions about politics than others?
💡Not political knowledge, but interest and confidence-in-knowledge drive emotional engagement.
link.springer.com/article/10.1...
🧵
New and open access, in @psrm.bsky.social: What happens when we make politicians draw distributions? Nic Dias, @jacklucas.bsky.social and I explore whether the large errors politicians make about public opinion are artificially inflated by how researchers ask them to estimate it /1
cup.org/4kltoyE
Super proud that our 9-country-study is finally published in @cpsjournal.bsky.social!
A Populist Axis? Analyzing Connections Between Populist, Economic, and Cultural Dimensions of Political Space
👉Populist axis exists, effect on voice choice differs by country
journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...
🧵
Two new articles in Party Politics
With
@gessler.bsky.social
Measuring party positions and issue salience with mass media and manifesto data"
doi.org/10.1177/1354...
With Hanspeter Kriesi
"Restructuring party systems in Northwestern Europe"
doi.org/10.1177/1354...
Feedback very welcome!
Same old, same old?
Germany held an early election after the implosion of the traffic-light coalition in Feb 25. Some takeaways from our election report @klingelt.bsky.social @wepsocial.bsky.social
www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....